


Domesticity

by scrapbullet



Category: Revolver (2005)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-21
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapbullet/pseuds/scrapbullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"You saved my life," Billy says one day, when the stitches have dissolved and the bruises are no longer fresh.</i> Where no-one dies, Sorter finds a home and there is ridiculous fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domesticity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unsettled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/gifts).



It goes like this-

Sorter doesn’t die, though it certainly feels like it at the time.

He doesn’t die but he coughs up blood, coughs up regret as the terrified screams of a little girl assault his ears.

He smells cooking flesh.

He doesn’t die and what comes next is a blur, a whirlwind of pain and fear like burning in his stomach, like red bubbling past his lips and a song like a siren in his head.

Billy doesn’t die, but he’s burned. Horribly burned and the smell is enough for Sorter to retch, tasting bile.

-

Rachel doesn’t die either.

Sorter pretends that the weight in his chest isn’t relief.

-

"You saved my life," Billy says one day, when the stitches have dissolved and the bruises are no longer fresh. Sorter aches in ways he can't even imagine, aches from the inside out, where the bullets had grazed bone and muscle and tender tissue. Cold metal had pierced the aorta and he's lost, now, lost in Billy's blue eyes and that little girl, that little girl that saw too much.

"I-it was nothing." Licks his lips, fidgets, sits at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in front him, still steaming and her, sweet little thing with big eyes, looking at him like he's god and an angel and a hero all wrapped up into one.

He's no god. No hero. Not really.

Rachel smiles, and it’s slow, gradual. Scarred. Sorter remembers her tears, how she'd cried. How Paul had stroked her hair and he’d tasted cold anger, heard the beat of his heart loud in his ears.

Sorter remembers the pain on Billy's face, the kind of pain that’s on the inside, where the nail through the palm of a hand is nothing in comparison to the very idea of his daughter suffering.

She smiles, and something inside Sorter warms.

Maybe that bullet fragment pierced more than just the physical.

"Will you stay for dinner?" Her voice is as soft as her dad’s, as her uncle's; he can't say no. She won’t allow it, and by the look on Billy's face neither will he. Cupping the mug between his trembling hands he smiles - or tries to, Billy's lips quirk, amused - lets the heat run him through.

"Sure. W-why not?"

-

He ends up staying longer than he thought he would.

It’s not a bad thing.

-

Billy kisses him first, and it’s awkward. There’s too much teeth and Sorter’s lips are chapped, bruised as Billy tries to crawl inside of him. It’s lust and desperation and something else, something else entirely.

And it’s perfect.

-

The next time she has a night terror it's not her dad that wipes away her tears.

It's strange. Awkward. Sorter has just come home from a job - nameless, faceless, a bullet through the head and brains spattered across his shirt - still cold and cruel and professional and Billy... Billy is still healing, burns decorating his torso; new skin pin and fresh and vulnerable.

 _(“They’re not exactly pretty,” Billy hums as Sorter stares, traces scars with shaking fingers, “but you’re not with me for my looks, are you.”)_

And Rachel, she loves her dad, it's clear as day. She wants him to heal, wants it so badly, doesn't disturb him, even when all she wants to do is tiptoe into the bedroom and curl up on top of the covers, fearful and shivering and awake, terror in her eyes and in her dreams.

So instead she sits in front of the muted television, static playing across her white face.

"I couldn’t sleep," she says, and in a second she's in his arms. Sorter freezes. There's still blood on his shirt, beneath the beige jacket, and if she see's...

...but she doesn't, because there are tears in her eyes and she's shaking, sobbing and Sorter doesn't know what to do. She clings to him and with every breath she wears herself out until she's blinking sleepily, sniffling, wiping her nose on the back of her hand and oh, he's really not good with kids. At all.

"I-It's late. You s-should be sleeping." It's stern. Firm. But affectionate, and when did he start thinking of her as blood? As family?

 _(When he started sleeping in Billy's bed, his glasses on the bedside cabinet. When he started touching Billy like breathing, when Billy kissed him and Sorter let him, let him kiss him and clutch his shoulders until he couldn’t stand it, this closeness, this intimacy. Until making breakfast and driving Rachel to school became routine, became something to make him smile.)_

Rachel sighs, exhausted. Her eyes are swollen and wet, bloodshot.

Lifts her arms like she's younger than she is, an entreaty, and he picks her up. Holds her to his chest and tucks her into bed - with blood on his shirt and his gun tucked into his pants - kisses her forehead.

Watches her until she falls asleep, eased.

When Sorter climbs into bed fifteen minutes later, Billy stirs. Curls into him, ignores the faint trembling of anxiety in Sorter's body and presses his lips to the scars on his chest. "Another nightmare?" he asks, voice sleep roughened, drowsy. Languid.

Sorter nods jerkily, hesitates, exhales, and cups Billy's cheek. "Yeah. I-I put her to bed."

Billy's lips twitch, as if trusting an assassin with his young daughter is alright, is commonplace, and he drifts off back to sleep.

-

He's not a replacement. If anything, he's nothing more than a poor substitute for a mother that died before she could even walk, and sometimes Billy looks at him like he's something strange and new. Sorter only shuffles his feet, pushes his glasses up his nose and awkwardly pats the top of Rachel’s head like he hasn't just made her lettuce and ham on wheat for her lunch, like he doesn’t do it five days a week. Like it doesn’t make him smile when she leaves the crust because her dad likes them, likes to hold it up to his face as if he’s smiling bread.

He's not a replacement. He's not even really a substitute, not in his line of work. But when she looks up at him with trust and adoration in her eyes _(asks, “why are your glasses fogged up?” and “why are you blushing?” curious like a child should be, like walking in on her dad kissing a man isn’t bad, just strange)_ well, that's just different.

Just different.

-

Jake’s a hard man. An intelligent man. Unhinged. He makes Sorter wary, and though he knows that Jake will never lay a hand on his niece it’s a worry that Sorter just can’t shake.

When he comes to visit there’s a heaviness in the air that even Rachel can feel, sitting at the breakfast bar and swinging her legs to and fro as she drinks a glass of milk. Scooby Doo is muted but she watches regardless, Sorter perched beside her as they both try to ignore the murmur of low, irritated voices in the lounge, try to remember that Uncle Jake is just going through a ‘rough patch’.

Her hand slips inside his and he squeezes, tries to comfort.

For once his hands don’t shake.

-

Macha's turning over in his grave.

Not that that's a bad thing, really. Macha was all tan and no brains, and though he could intimidate well enough when push came to shove he was no match for the pull of insanity. Last time Sorter had seen him he’d been a jibbering mess, stuffed in a padded room and lying prostrate on the floor, face streaked with tears.

He hadn't lasted long. A week, and he got loose. Gouged his eyes out with a spoon.

S'no loss. Not with how he threatened Rachel.

But that’s not the point.

...They're having a tea party.

Sorter's never had a tea party before.

It's not real tea, of course, though the china is expensive and Billy is watching them over the top of the newspaper, eyes crinkled around the edges that’s almost a smile. Rachel offers him a plate of finger sponges, real ones, and they're sweet, laced with raspberry jam.

She titters away, comfortable. As if Sorter isn't sitting on the floor beside her awkwardly holding a teacup, pinky in the air. As if his long legs aren't folded awkwardly under him, body hunched forward to feign interest in the scintillating conversation courtesy of Mr Puffles.

Mr Puffles is a frog. He wears a top hat.

Sorter thinks he doesn’t look like a Mr Puffles.

But then, Sorter doesn’t really know what to think at all.

He meets Billy’s eyes and the warmth in his chest expands, spreads out to the tips of his toes.

Maybe it makes him smile too.

-

It goes like this-

Sorter goes about his business, but he has somewhere to come home to when it’s over, when the cheque is crisp in his hand. There’s a man who is something like a lover, and there’s a girl who is something like a daughter, and whether his hands are stained with blood or not, they’re there.

They’re there, and it’s home.


End file.
